


it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

by teamfreewolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamfreewolf/pseuds/teamfreewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(and whatever a sun will always sing is you)</p>
<p>In which faeries are the worst, Derek is human, and Stiles is the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day ♡
> 
>  
> 
> X-posted to tumblr. Unbeta'd.

“Maybe next time I tell you that you need to work on your inter-creature communication skills, you’ll do something other than toss your eyebrow daggers at me,” Stiles said, waving a hand in front of his face to clear away the shimmering dust left in the wake of the enraged faery queen.

Derek’s eyebrows responded accordingly.

“Hey, I’m not the one who had a hissy fit in front of the sovereign, big guy,” Stiles shrugged.

“Faeries are delusional,” Derek grumbled, but he had the grace to look chastened.

“Because you werewolves are beacons of rationality,” Lydia said drolly, twirling a perfect curl around her finger from her post, leaning against a tree at the edge of the clearing – or, apparently, the local faery circle.

Trust the Beacon Hills pack to turn a routine training exercise into the supernatural equivalent of an international incident. Apparently transforming while in this particular patch of trees was considered performing unsanctioned magic, and the faery court who used it as an entrance to their dimension (and really? Faeries, too? South American murder lizards weren’t enough?) took exception to such things.

Stiles had been shivering in his jacket against the late January chill and composing his latest complaint against the humans’ mandatory attendance rule when the training skirmish between the wolves had been interrupted only a short while before. A cold blast of wind, colder even than the winter chill already in the air, accompanied by clouds of iridescent dust had sent the pack members flying backwards. Derek’s wonderful situation processing skills of course lead him to snarl and snap at the newcomer before making any further assessments.

A terrifyingly beautiful woman with long white hair floated in midair in the clearing. After some yelping and swearing from the various humans and wolves in the ring of trees, and some more expulsions of the shimmering dust from God only knows where, the chaos settled enough for them to hold a conversation (of sorts). The woman, the Faery Queen it seemed, demanded an explanation for the use of magic on her land.

            _“Uh, sorry? We didn’t know,” Stiles had spat out, jaw still gaping at the floating woman. Her gaze swung towards him and it felt like he’d been thrown into a bucket of ice; the cold eyes white as her hair. It was like staring into a blizzard. Her face twisted in disgust._

_“Humans. You’re all of no use now, ignoring the old ways, thinking you’re above our laws. Your ancestors would have known better,” she spat._

_“Well, my grandpa taught me about baseball and fart jokes, but somehow magical boundaries never came up.”_  

The conversation devolved then into more slurs Stiles only half understood and shots at the ignorance of humans and baby wolves and Alphas who didn’t respect their place in the world. But it was when she demanded the heart of one of the humans to eat as reparation for their actions that things really went to shit (Stiles had spluttered eloquently, and Lydia had only said “You can try”).  

Derek’s lips had curved dangerously into a snarl and his eyes gleamed red as he refused. The queen had smiled then, and her teeth were gleaming icicles. A chill settled along Stiles’ spine when she spoke her next words:

            _“Very well, Alpha. They’re your responsibility, and now so is my restitution. You value your humans above our old laws? Then you may have what you love the most – humanity is my blessing to you, until you complete my sacrifice and consume one of their hearts.”_

Another powerful wind had swept through the trees and she vanished, leaving only the shimmering powder to float around their faces before settling on the grass like snow.

 

“What did she mean?” Scott asked, slurring the words slightly as his fangs receded into his gums. “Humanity is my blessing to you?”

Before anybody could answer, Isaac, Boyd, and Erica suddenly dropped from their defensive stances to their knees, their eyes flashing gold, and sounds of distress tearing from their throats into the clearing. Stiles, Lydia, and Scott were immediately at their sides, checking them for damage, but nothing seemed wrong. Stiles looked up at Derek for guidance. 

Derek stood away from them, staring at his hands, arms outstretched, the fingers flexing. His face was no longer wolflike, but entirely human; the expression on it stricken.

“Uh, Derek?” Stiles prompted hesitantly.

“She took it,” Derek said, his voice quavering in a way Stiles had never heard before. “She took it from me.”

“What? What did she take,” Scott snapped frantically, his hand still on Isaac’s shoulder as the other werewolf continued to release a high keening sound.

“My wolf. My… my… I’m human,” Derek finally responded. His gaze snapped up to meet theirs, and Stiles saw more fear in Derek’s eyes than he could ever remember seeing, no red glare obscuring the emotions.

The three Betas’ cries were softer now, weakening in intensity, and Stiles realized just how real the bond between the pack and their Alpha was; losing Derek had physically affected them. As they came back to awareness, their eyes turning back to normal, Stiles noticed Boyd clutch briefly at his chest, above his heart. Stiles wondered briefly if that was what Derek had felt when Laura died, or Peter (either time). 

Scott met Stiles’ gaze, and said exactly what they were all thinking: “Oh, shit.”

* * *

 

Human Derek really wasn’t that much different from Werewolf Derek.

Derek still didn’t trip once during the trek through the woods back to the cars, even his now human body remarkably strong and graceful, and his eyebrows still did that dance across his forehead that managed to display both his annoyance and his benevolent patient with Stiles while he leaned back against the passenger side door of the Jeep.

Scott and Stiles maneuvered the three semi-steady Betas into the Camaro for Lydia to drive home while Scott, Stiles, and Derek planned to go directly to see Deaton. But when, before getting into the car, Isaac had dipped his neck to talk softly in Scott’s ear, Stiles pretty much knew what Scott was going to say before he told them.

“It’s fine, go with them, do your freaky wolf comfort touch thing – we’ll meet you guys at the clinic,” Stiles said, ignoring the miniscule flinch from the large, currently human, body beside him.

He moved to walk to the driver’s side, but drew his hand softly down Derek’s arm as he brushed past him. Derek tensed, but didn’t reject the contact. They’d been doing more and more of this in the past weeks, physical touches that weren’t tainted with the threat of violence, that weren’t even necessary.

“We’ll figure this out,” Stiles said quietly.

Derek swallowed thickly and nodded, climbing into the car. 

Even with his sympathy for the guy’s situation, Stiles could only last about five minutes into the silent car ride before his curiosity got the better of him. 

“So what’s it like? I mean, I know what it’s like, obviously, but what’s it like for you?”  He swiveled his head briefly to look at his passenger, but Derek’s gaze remained resolutely forward at the road. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never been human before,” was all he said. 

Stiles screwed up his face as he considered that statement. 

“But obviously it’s different. You knew right away when it happened – something changed.”

Derek said nothing for a long moment, and Stiles was considering which of his father’s interrogation techniques to break out first, when finally he said, 

“I hate it already. You – humans – you’re so weak. And I can’t –“ he huffed in frustration, “ – your senses are… I can’t smell you. I can’t hear your heartbeat. And when I try to extend these senses to gather that information, when I reach for that part of myself, it’s empty. I know where it should be, but it’s just… gone.”

Stiles worried his lip with his teeth, knowing better than to talk now. He had some sense of tact. 

“I’m sure it seems stupid to you, but those things have been with me my whole life. You think you manage just fine without them, but I – I need them to survive,” Derek continued, finally turning to look at him. 

Scott had told him once that for a while there, after Melissa first found out about him, he’d sometimes just lay in bed and listen to her heartbeat in the room down the hall.

_“Even when I thought she might hate me, what I am, it was like… if I could hear her, know that she was there, that she’d hadn’t left…_ (like his father, though that remained unspoken) _then there was still a chance. It was still okay.”_  

For all that had Scott rejected his senses at first, Stiles knew he took some comfort in them now. He’d only had them a few months. What must it be like to lose something you’d had forever? To be missing an entire part of you? 

Well, actually, Stiles did know what that felt like, though losing a loved might not be directly comparable to losing a sense. Of course, Derek had that kind of pain covered too. 

“Nah, dude, it’s not stupid.” 

Derek’s lashes shuttered down and he turned away. Stiles itched to reach over and put a hand over his where it lay on the seat, but he knew Derek would think it was pity. His knuckles turned white as he clutched wheel tighter.

* * *

 

The tabby cat on Deaton’s examination table eyed them scornfully as Stiles barreled his way through the story. Derek stood in the corner, eyes flickering between the door and Stiles’ broadly gesturing hands. 

“A faery circle? Interesting,” Deaton muttered as he held the cat down to check its stomach. “I thought we’d closed most of them up…” Apparently satisfied with the way the stitches were healing, he scooped the cat up and disappeared briefly into the other room. After he’d returned and washed his hands, he ducked down to pull out the drawer Stiles had long since learned to be wary of and plucked out a jar of what looked like finely ground metal flakes.

“Iron,” he said, handing it to Stiles. “Next new moon, get a human to dig a small hole, at least a foot down, in the center of the circle and pour this in. It should seal up the door to their realm for a few years at least.”

Stiles looked between Deaton’s face and the heavy jar in the hands. Deaton said nothing else. 

Stiles gaped. 

“Ohh-kay, but what about –“

“Derek’s a human!” Scott said, bursting in through the back door.

“Yeah, that!” Stiles squawked.

“Yeah, that,” Derek said darkly from the corner. 

Deaton turned a sympathetic gaze on the former Alpha lurking in the shadows of the examination room.

“Ah, yes. I will look into it, but I’m sorry to tell you that there is most likely nothing I can do. Faery magic is very strong, and in most cases the only way to be free of a curse is to follow the instructions given to break it.”

“You want me to eat their hearts?” Human Derek could still growl, too, apparently – his teeth were blunt and un-fangy, but ground tightly together in his furious scowl.

“No, of course not, but,” Deaton shrugged. “As I said, I will try to help, but their magic is unspeakably ancient and difficult to break. The fair folk are said to be unable to tell any lie, and when armed with only truth in their words, their curses can prove particularly binding.”

Derek swore. Stiles could only nod agreement. Scott looked horrified

“ _What?_ So Derek’s going to stay _human?_ Unless he _eats Stiles’ heart_? What about - ?” He stopped halfway through, the weight of the situation settling fully on his shoulders.

Derek’s voice was bleak when he spoke

“Scott, you can’t just leave them alone while I’m like this.”

Stiles groaned. 

“Oh great, so Scott’s what? Your pack’s foster Alpha?”

Derek’s eyebrows did another complicated dance that said _I’m not any happier about this than you are._

Stiles clenched his fist around the jar of iron. Mentally he went though the lunar cycle – the full moon was next week, which meant the next new moon was in three. He doubted the faery queen would be of any help at all, but if for some awful reason they still hadn’t figured out a solution by then, maybe they could prostrate themselves before her and beg for forgiveness before sealing up the doorway to her dimension. (Or maybe not.) 

“Alright, well, thank you as always for your mysterious drawer and your vague answers, but I think it’s time to assemble the troops,” Stiles said, waving halfheartedly to Deaton as he pushed past Scott out the back door. 

Scott and Derek followed soon after him, but Stiles was already plunging headfirst into planning. 

“I’m sure Lydia’s got the terrible trio back at their homes and settled by now, so we can bring them up to speed tomorrow at school. I’ll call her and see if she can get digging into her copy of the bestiary tonight, and I’ll see what I can find online. Scott, want to join me? There are a few books I still haven’t returned to the library that might have something useful.” So much for getting his trig homework done before Monday. 

Scott nodded, and headed towards the Jeep in the parking lot. 

Derek stood eerily still, eyes focused sharply on Stiles. He looked like a soldier awaiting orders. 

“Derek, uh – what do you normally do? Lurk until there’s somebody to intimidate for information?” 

Derek’s lips firmed menacingly. Stiles felt a little twinge of sympathy. 

“It’s hard, isn’t it? Being a useless human,” he said lightly, but the joke fell flat. 

“You’re not useless, Stiles.” 

“Nice to know you do recognize my value,” he quipped, feeling awkward. “But you should probably get some rest, dude. I’ll drive you home and – “ 

“I’ll walk,” Derek said, and turned away. 

“Seriously? That’ll take you like an hour! At least! You can’t –“ _run your funny little werewolf run_ , he almost said, but Derek’s shoulders had tensed before it even left his mouth. 

“It’s fine,” the retreating figure said.

“Alright, just….” Stiles licked his lips and couldn’t believe he was saying this to Derek freakin’ Hale, “be careful.”

Derek just kept walking.

 

The next week saw their little misfit pack running themselves ragged looking for a solution. Lydia scoured the bestiary’s records on faeries, managing to roughly translate the Gaelic sources and send Stiles the information, but besides providing a disturbing detailed list on what they liked to do to the humans they tricked into joining them in their realm, there wasn’t much on faery curses. There was a strange line about tricking the tricksters, but the language was odd and Stiles wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

His library books didn’t help much either – the sections on the fae were dedicated to ancient myths and warnings about not riding off into lakes on mysterious horses. But nothing turned up on faery curses or their apparent heart-munching tendencies. Seriously, Grandpa, thanks for nothing. 

The other werewolves, now recovered from their Alpha excision and fully informed, worked tirelessly with Stiles before and after school, dredging through websites and tomes from the specialty bookshop they’d tracked down a few miles outside of town. They worked best around Scott, it seemed; the presence of an Alpha, even if he wasn’t “officially” an Alpha, or even theirs, calmed their nerves and took the edge off of what seemed to be a constant vibration of tension around them. 

Once or twice the possibility of bringing Allison into the loop was discussed, but Derek shut it down harshly. Stiles couldn’t really blame him; letting his longtime enemies, however neutral they were now, know just how vulnerable he was didn’t seem like a comfortable position to be in. 

Derek was not adjusting well. 

He showed up at Stiles’ window like clockwork after school ended, still strong enough it seemed to climb up the tree and clamber through the sill. What he did during their school days, Stiles didn’t know, and Derek didn’t seem to be in any mood to tell. He poured over books with the rest of them, but after the first couple of days, he became a Derek that Stiles had never seen before. He was twitchy, fidgety, restless. He jumped at every sound, eyes flickering constantly to the window, to the door, back to his book.

Erica, Isaac, and Boyd still curled up beside him, gave small, innocuous touches, but it didn’t seem to affect any of them the same as before.

With four still fully functioning werewolves, it was fairly easy to avoid Stiles’ father and remain alert to any dangers or interruptions, but Stiles soon realized that Derek hated not being able to keep tabs on their surroundings the way he used to. 

Each day he appeared, Derek looked more and more drawn. Dark circles formed beneath his eyes, and his human body drooped under what looked like growing exhaustion. For once in his life, though, Stiles wasn’t quite sure what to say. 

The next weekend came, and with it the full moon. The tension was palpable any time the wolves were in a room together. When it had become clear that they wouldn’t have a solution in time for this, they’d actually had a rational conversation to plan. Scott, now most able to control himself during the moon, would chain up the betas with the help of Isaac, before they, too, would lock themselves in the train. Better safe than sorry.

Derek had protested and wanted to be there as well, but even his meanest scowl crumbled when Erica had said in a strangely subdued voice, “No, you can’t be around us. We might hurt you.”

The arguments had died in his throat, and his mouth shut with a sharp click of teeth, before he closed his eyes and nodded.

When Scott and the betas left Stiles’ house late that afternoon, Stiles couldn’t stop himself from speaking when Derek made to leave as well.

“Derek, don’t. Don’t go back and mope in your creepy house tonight. Just stay here.” 

He’d expected a fight, but it seemed there wasn’t any left in this Derek. The former Alpha’s shoulders drooped, and he’d thrown himself back into the desk chair. Stiles, situated on the bed, tried to return to the book he was reading, but his eyes kept being drawn back to the figure sitting listlessly across from him.

The Derek he knew was a grim asshole, a pretty sad example of a leader, and way too much a fan of the boys’ locker to be normal, but he was also annoyingly stubborn. A fighter. He didn’t always fight for the right thing or the right reason, but he also didn’t give up.  It was why Scott and him had so often butted heads; they were both too obstinate to let the other win without a struggle. 

This Derek, this limp, despondent human Derek before him was… _disconcerting_ to say the least.

“This will be the first full moon since I hit puberty that I don’t feel it,” Derek said suddenly. “The pull of it, the rush. The crawling beneath my skin, under my ribcage.” He pressed the heel of his hand there.  “I’ve been reaching for it all day, but it’s still gone. I still can’t feel it." 

Stiles shut his book with a snap.

“You look awful, you know.”

Derek glowered weakly, but even that show of his old self gave Stiles a little thrill.

“Thanks. You’re not exactly winning any pageants yourself.”

Stiles gave the halfhearted protest required, scrubbing a hand over his own tired eyes, but didn’t let himself be distracted. “I’m serious, dude. When was the last time you slept?”

Derek huffed out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t. I can’t.”

“Jesus, Derek –“

“I can’t, Stiles! How the hell do you sleep? You can barely hear anything, barely smell anything, nothing but your weak underdeveloped instincts to tell you if there’s danger. How do you just lay there, waiting for –“ _attack. Danger. Lay there vulnerable. Exposed. Human._ Derek’s voice cracked under the weight of what they both knew he wasn’t saying.

Stiles glanced out the window at the rapidly gathering darkness. He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten to the point in his life where he thought he might actually understand something Derek Hale was saying, but here it was. The weird thing between then that they’d been dancing around had been put on hold since the first car ride to Deaton’s, but Stiles couldn’t stand to look at the dejected husk of the Derek he knew any longer.

Derek’s words from that car ride echoed in his head:

_I can’t hear your heartbeat._

And Scott’s:

_If I could hear her, know that she was there…_

He shoved the book of the bed and moved himself back, propping himself against the headboard and pillows. 

“Come here,” he said.

“What,” Derek said. The eyebrows did a halfhearted attempt at a menace. They were too tired to have an impact, and Stiles couldn’t care less what they had to say anyway.

“Stop being such a stubborn dick and come here,” he patted the bed. “Just, for once, just trust me,” he sighed.

Slowly, Derek rose from the chair and skulked towards him, settling awkwardly at the edge of the bed. Stiles’ eyebrows did their own dance. Derek inched a smidgen closer.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Stiles said, exasperated. “I know that even in that oh so scrawny puny human body of yours you can probably still maim me beyond recognition, but I really am trying to help, so please, like, don’t,” he finished lamely, and leaned forward to grasp Derek’s magnificently formed biceps and pull him up towards Stiles on the bed.

Derek’s face took on an expression of brooding martyrdom (and it was weird how Stiles took comfort in that) but he let Stiles arrange him on the bed and around his body without any further protests. Finally, Stiles settled them with an arm thrown over and around hulking shoulders, with Derek’s ear nestled against the left side of Stiles’ chest.

“I know I’m not one of your little wolflings or whatever, but I have a perfectly good heartbeat right here. You guys are weird about things like that, right? I’m fairly certain that after all this work I’ve done to help you, you’re not actually considering eating the Stilinski ticker, so hopefully this won’t like, work up an appetite or something.” Stiles settled back against the pillows more comfortably. “There’s nothing else you can do for them, not tonight. They’ve been working on control, you’ve been doing it with them, you know they’re getting so much better. Scott and Isaac are there. You’re not superwolf anymore. You can’t just keep running around without sleep. Us humans need it. So just… do it. Go the fuck to sleep.” Stiles kept himself from chuckling at the reference, but it was mostly out of anxiety.

For a second, Stiles wondered if he had finally done it – crossed the line. Derek’s solid body was tense against his, but after a long few moments, it began to relax. The strange lullaby of the Stilinski heartbeat must have worked, because after only five minutes, Derek nestled closer, turning his face into the soft blue fabric of Stiles’ shirt and winding muscled arm around Stiles’ waist, and his breathing fell into a slow, steady rhythm.

Stiles carded his fingers absently through the dark head of hair resting on his chest, and looked out the window again at the moon that had finally decided to show its face.

He kept watch, and Derek slept.  
  


* * *

 

Stiles vaguely remembered finally giving into sleep sometime in the early hours of the morning, the sun just beginning to creep into the window. His phone buzzed with a message from Scott: 

            ‘ _Everythings fine :) see you at school’_

He’d let out the deep breath he’d been holding, and leaned his head back against he headboard, eyes closing, hand stilling in its small movements through Derek’s hair. 

When he woke up only a few hours later to the incessant beeping of his alarm, Derek was gone.

* * *

 

School brought a more complete report – the new chains had held, and although both Scott and Isaac chained themselves, they’d retained enough control to keep watch over Erica and Boyd when their anchors had slipped and they’d shifted.

The plan for the end of the day was the same, research, research, and more useless research, but the futility of it was getting to them all. During the unusually quiet lunch period, Stiles had said, “Why don’t we give it a break this afternoon, guys,” and nobody protested. There were two more nights of the full moon – they’d have to leave only a few hours into it anyway.

He drove to the Animal Clinic after school instead. Deaton let him in with a twist of his lips that send Stiles’ spirits plunging.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stilinski, but I haven’t yet been able to find a way of outside magic breaking the curse. Derek’s only option right now is fulfilling the terms,” the vet said in his irritatingly calm voice.

“Fulfilling the terms? He has to _eat a heart_! _My_ heart, most likely, because hell if Lydia will let him get near her anytime soon!”

Deaton’s gaze met his intently.

“You’re a clever boy, Stiles. That spark in you has a lot of potential, especially if you put that mind of yours to it. The thing about faerie magic is that, yes, you have to follow their rules. But that doesn’t mean you have to follow the rules the way they want you to.”

Stiles scowled.

The door of the clinic opened and the local florist walked in carrying her old English Springer.

“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Stilinski,” Deaton said, and turned to the woman, a clear dismissal.

Stiles stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t care if it was totally immature. Screw Deaton and his riddles – why couldn’t the man ever just give them a straight answer? So faeries couldn’t lie and Deaton couldn’t tell the simple truth.

He let himself ride the anger all the way home, breezing past his father’s note about his late shift tonight and the reminder to go grocery shopping tomorrow, stomping up the stairs to his room, until he swung open the door and saw Derek sitting at the foot of his bed.

The sight deflated him.

Derek raised a questioning brow at his entrance. Stiles threw his bag at the desk and clambered onto the bed by the pillows; Derek twisted his body to face him.

“I went to see Deaton,” he said, but his tone made it clear that there wasn’t any good news. Derek didn’t react. A good night’s rest had apparently put all his shields back up to maximum power.

Stiles glanced halfheartedly at the heavy tome on Elf culture (and not the Tolkien kind) he’d been leafing through the past few days, but found he didn’t have the drive to move to get it.

Derek didn’t move either towards his now usual post of the computer chair and the books piled beside it. He also said nothing regarding the room, empty of other werewolves.

“I’m going to make Hot Pockets and watch a movie,” Stiles said finally, breaking the silence stretching between them. “You in?”

Hours later, the roof of Stiles’ mouth was still numb where he’d scalded it on microwaved cheese, and the credits of _Alien_ were running along the screen of his laptop where it sat balanced at the edge of the bed. Derek was arched around him in the same position as the night before, fast asleep.  
  


* * *

 

Stiles took a break from crazy supernatural life duty to actually do his ‘be a good son’ duty and go grocery shopping the next afternoon. In the maddening blur of the past week, he’d forgotten that the new month had come, and with February, of course, came the obnoxious red, pink, and white decorations and banners that reminded him that yes, another year had passed, and yes, he was still single.

Stiles didn’t have anything against Valentine’s Day – his mom had loved it, making cards and cutting out paper hearts to string along the bannister. But after she’d died, it had seemed silly for Stiles and his dad to celebrate it. It didn’t hurt anymore, not the way Christmas sometimes did, but it still wasn’t a big tradition in the Stilinski household. 

Stiles was carefully selecting the best-looking apples from the cart when the balloon that had escaped from its rack caught his eye.

“YOU’VE STOLEN MY HEART, VALENTINE” it read in bold red letters against a background of a jail cell.

Firstly: Uh, _weird._

Secondly: huh.

As he made his way through the store, more and more declarations popped out at him from rows of prepackaged cards, banners, chocolate boxes, candy boxes, all screaming out…

_GIVE YOU MY HEART_

_WITH ALL MY HEART_

_TAKE MY HEART_

The _heart, heart, heart_ repeated in his skull along with the beat of his own damned organ in his chest.

Heart of a human.

Heart.

Eat a heart.

_No._

That couldn’t – but –

_You have to follow their rules… but that doesn’t mean you have to follow the rules the way they want you to…._

Stiles felt a flicker of hope. He reached out to grab a box off the shelf by his head and started towards the checkout lines.

* * *

 

He tore open the box in the parking lot and plucked one from the pack.

Stiles clutched the little thing to his chest the entire drive home, only half paying attention to the road as he dug down inside himself to the place he’d gone when he’d had that tiny handful of mountain ash left.

_You have to believe._

Be the spark.

_This is my heart, this is my heart, this is my heart,_ he repeated over and over in his mind, trying to imbue it with whatever it was that made his heart, well, his heart. The beat, the blood, the rhythm, the strength…

He skidded into the driveway and forgot the groceries in the car in his rush to get inside and upstairs.

Derek was there, of course, as Stiles had hoped he’d be. Stiles grinned broadly, his pulse a frantic, wild thing under his skin from excitement and the sprint. Derek’s eyes went wide.

“Stiles, what –“

_This is my heart, this is my heart, this is my heart,_ he thought, and extended his hand, palm open, the little candy heart sitting dead in the center. Thin capital letters spelled out: BE MINE.

Derek frowned. 

“Stiles, really, is this the best time for this?”

“Oh for God’s sake Derek, I’m not asking you to go steady or anything – although if by some miracle I’m right about this, you definitely owe me a kiss. And it better be a good one, our UST has been off the charts recently…” Stiles stopped, realizing he was babbling, and Derek was now looking very confused.

“Go on, Derek. Take my heart. Eat it,” Stiles said carefully. The confusion cleared from Derek’s face.

_This is my heart, this is my heart, this is my heart, it beats, it’s mine, it sits in my chest, it keeps me alive, this is my heart,_ Stiles chanted to himself, screwing his eyes shut to concentrate, as Derek reached out. _You have to believe._

_C’mon, Spark, don’t fail me now._

Derek plucked the little candy heart from his palm and Stiles heard the crunch of it between his teeth.

A vicious pain tore through Stiles’ chest, and he passed out.

* * *

 

He came back to consciousness to the sound of his name being yelled repeatedly in his face, because that was always a pleasant thing to wake to. 

“Stiles. Stiles! Jesus, Stiles, wake up!”

Derek, and yeah, that was Derek wasn’t it, sounded frantic. Those big, strong hands Stiles had so quickly grown used to being wrapped around his waist were now clutching his shoulders in a painfully tight grip, shaking him in a decidedly ungentle manner.

He groaned, and the shaking stopped. Thank God.

_“Stiles!”_

The past few weeks came rolling back with jolting clarity. He forced his eyes open, even though his head was throbbing. Subverting faery magic felt a bit like getting a concussion, apparently. That is, if -

“Did it work?”

He found himself pulled into an inhumanly tight embrace, his legs lifted from the floor into Derek’s lap as the werewolf (??????) wrapped around him.

“Yes, you absolute lunatic. It worked,” Derek’s voice rumbled by his ear. Stiles grinned into Derek’s neck.

“Damn, I really am the best,” he said, and forgot all about his pounding headache when Derek silenced his shaky laugh of triumph with a kiss.

It was a good one.

It got even better when Stiles pulled away and requested they move to the bed.

(The groceries did get brought in – eventually.)

* * *

 

Epilogue:

Two weeks later, Stiles was nestled snuggly against Derek’s warm side as they waited by cars. The new moon had finally arrived, and with it their chance to seal up the faery portal in the clearing; but, after a surprisingly efficient consultation with Deaton, it was decided that no werewolf or sparked up human should even get near the faery circle until the coast was clear. They needed someone completely un-magical to prevent provoking the Queen’s reappearance and risking her wrath at being outwitted. (Faeries really, _really_ hated that, apparently.)

Lydia appeared out of the treeline, an empty jar in one hand and a small shovel in the other.

“You guys owe me a manicure,” she said, firmly pressing the shovel to Derek’s chest and the jar to Stiles’ until they grasped them, then moved to slide gracefully into her car and drive away.

They tossed the jar and shovel into the trunk of the Camaro, never moving too far away from each other. Derek and Stiles had been touching almost constantly the past weeks. When Derek wasn’t touching him, he was engaged in very manly wolfy snuggles with the terrible trio, who were ecstatic to have their Alpha back. Stiles really didn’t mind it, the touching. Scott made gagging noises at them. It was great.

He’d been sleeping better than ever before with Derek curled against him at night, his head resting on Stiles’ chest as it rose and fell steadily. Every night before Stiles finally dropped off, he’d resume his new favorite pastime of carding his fingers through Derek’s hair, and think to himself: _this is my heart, this is my heart._

 


End file.
